Paulson To Focus On Other Performing Funds

Mr. Paulson, who has been known for his massive investments in the precious metal suffered deep losses due the recent swings in the gold. As a result, he plans now to shift his focus to other better-performing investments, which are also greater in size than his gold funds.

Mr. Paulson’s, owner of the $18 billion firm, investment in gold was down 47 percent in 2013 till April. In April, the fund itself was down 26.5 percent. There have been no words out on the fund’s performance in May, as of yet.

Letter By Paulson To Investors

A recent letter sent to investors by Paulson & Co. said that the report card for the performance of the gold fund will be issued separately and will not be included in the shares monthly updates. The investors in the gold fund, which has around $360 million of funds, will receive a separate statement showcasing the performance.

The funds “have received a disproportionate amount of attention over recent months and have detracted attention from the performance and positive developments of our other funds.”

So in a way, this may be a message from the billionaire hedge-fund manager to the investors, asking them to “Stop paying so much attention to my gold bets,” says a report from WSJ by Gregory Zuckerman and Juliet Chung

The letter says that the fund accounts for only 2 percent of the total assets under management and it is only on the request of clients and consultants that the performance of the gold funds will be released separately to investors and other interested parties.

Along with issuing separate reports, the hedge fund firm will also hold separate conference calls for the gold fund. Also, the firm will stop the reporting of it’s the gold share class in the regular investor updates.

Other performing funds

The Paulson Recovery fund, which manages around $2 billion, was up 4.9 percent in May, and 27 percent year to date. Paulson & Co.’s two credit funds gained 3.6 percent in May and 16.2 percent till May. Paulson’s merger funds rose between 8.2 percent and 17.4 percent through May.

Losses greatly exaggerated

At a SALT Conference last month, Paulson himself told that the losses in gold have been greatly exaggerated and the largest of his investments are still concentrated in gold. The hedge fund manager’s top five holdings included SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSEARCA:GLD), Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S), Life Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:LIFE), AngloGold Ashanti Limited (NYSE:AU) and Realogy Holdings Corp (NYSE:RLGY).

However, Paulson did exit stakes in Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX).